This is what's REALLY holding back wind and solar
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- čas přidán 27. 05. 2024
- Building solar farms and wind parks is one thing. Plugging them into the grid is another. How does our power system need to change to cope with more renewables?
Credits:
Reporter: Malte Rohwer-Kahlmann
Video Editor: Frederik Willmann
Supervising Editor: Joanna Gottschalk, Michael Trobridge, Kiyo Dörrer
We're destroying our environment at an alarming rate. But it doesn't need to be this way. Our new channel Planet A explores the shift towards an eco-friendly world - and challenges our ideas about what dealing with climate change means. We look at the big and the small: What we can do and how the system needs to change. Every Friday we'll take a truly global look at how to get us out of this mess.
#PlanetA #RenewableEnergy #Grid
Read More:
Integrating Renewable Energy Resources into the Grid:
www.rff.org/publications/expl...
Energy Transitions Commissions report:
www.energy-transitions.org/pu...
Where wind power is harnessed (U.S.):
www.eia.gov/energyexplained/w....
Report on Grid-Scale Storage:
www.iea.org/reports/grid-scal...
Chapters:
00:00 Intro
01:13 How the grid works
02:43 More renewables, more problems
05:37 How the grid was built
07:00 What needs to happen
10:47 Conclusion
Would you adjust your electricity usage to the availability of renewable electricity?
The grid
How to upgrade it with competitive prices of what is needed
Where it comes from
And leverage
☣️☠️ Don't f*ck us off sort of shit leverage
I bet you I'm not far wrong am i
No, absolutely not. solar PV and wind are soon to be cheaper than any other form of electricty. We should be drowning in electricity at all times. The problem of building enough grid is easy to solve if politicians get out of the way. When too much electricity is being generated, the surplus can be used to electrolyze hydrogen for industrial chemicals and steel-making, and to remove carbon from the air.
We need a solar tariff from, let's say, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. to shift the demand when it's cheaper.
We need a "traffic light" signal from our power meters showing when demand is low (green, 51 Hz) or high (red, 49 Hz).
This is really an old problem that has been ignored too long. Actually incredible that people wake up now.
I think another such problem is probably biomimicry getting patented which should be outlawed to just a certain extent, because such patents should have a certain amount of originality to avoid playing in God's domain! That way, we can have better energy storage!
"In relation to creation / evolution, it is well to remember that evolution has not & cannot be proved." "On the issue of a relationship with God, mistakes have eternal consequences" -Roger Carswell. (I hope the same of the latter quote can't be said of other deities.) And the former one points to the possibility of the prehistoric world being created in a week! In case you are wondering, the quotes are from a book called Questions & Answers From The Bible!
@@frostfamily5321 I seriously doubt that the Bible is a good source to design our future energy sources!
@@st-ex8506 What about biomimicry? It must at least give a cellular level guide for battery design!
@@frostfamily5321 I haven't studied "biomimial" battery design! But I am in favor of all designs better performing, for one or many applications, then the existing ones.
But what I know, for instance, is that nature is very inefficient at capturing solar energy. Photosynthesis is 1% efficient, when commercial solar panels are 20+% efficient, and research-level ones, up to 40%. That level of (in)efficiency is sufficient for plants, but not to cover modern humans' energy needs!
Yes! Thank you so much for making this video. I work for an electricity grid company for the lower voltages, so the cables that are in the streets and between neighborhood's. We also have a huge amount of work. The amount of aluminium that's going into the ground is enormous and so many more transformers are needed that need to be placed somewhere. If you're looking for a job check the jobs your grid company offers. There are also a lot of jobs for non technical people and if you are technical but don't have an electricity background there's quite often a training program so just try it. I studied architectural engineering and am now an engineer for the cables in your street.
The irony is that aluminum production in Europe has gone down because of high energy prices, this means with enough forethought we could have possibly prevented it. 😞
@@autohmaeyes, the transition to Renewable Energy must happen during time when energy is cheap, when we have surplus of cheap energy to build infrastructure. When energy will be super expensive the effort to build clean and safe future will be much bigger.
@@OmmerSyssel I'm European and work for an European company. They don't gatekeep. There aren't enough people that have the correct qualifications at the start to be able to gatekeep. At the company I work at I first had to go through a program where they taught me about my work, as I wrote before. After learning the basics I got my first project which was quite simple. All my work was checked extra for about half a year, at our company the work is always checked for compatibility with the rest of the grid and whether it's correct with the standards that our company has. I can always ask my more experienced colleagues and the people that oversee the work outside for help
In the Netherlands, you can already get energy contracts where your price varies by the hour, and you get an app to see the prices for the day. On days with a lot of sun and wind, the price can actually get negative. This means people will automatically try to shift demand to those hours.
In case that is a lot of work: there are already systems that can connect your washing machine to your home assistant, to turn it on when the price drops below a certain level. For now, those systems still have a high degree of tinkering in them, but that will become more mainstream I hope!
Do you have a company name for me, i would like to look a bit deeper into it
Very Impressive, what is happening in Holland with energy optimization.
Recently I heard about Ibis Power, that installs complex systems on rooftops.
Aren't these systems still variable tarrif. What happens in an extreme case where there is a drastic shortage in power supply. A good example is what happened in Texas during the snow storm last year or was it already 2-3 years ago. People on variable tariffs got huge bills 30k USD for the month, etc. At the moment such a problem is not to be expected in the Netherlands orCentral-West Europe, but how can the system be set up for extremes like this so that the consumer does not empty their bank account or even worse end up in debt.
@@TheNiro87 gridX
@@BrandonLoboThose variable prices are set the day before, per hour, for the whole country (except for a minor margin depending on your contact) so extremes like in Texas aren't expected. The biggest problem in the Netherlands is that we have 'salderen'. That is that is that the excess solar energy is fed back to the grid, can be used in the winter without any extra charge. So in our home we have about 1MWh of solar in the peak months that we can use for free in the winter. It was ment as a boost for renewable energy (solar) but isn't helping the energy transition at the moment. It isn't financially interesting to store energy in a home battery (for the night for example) because the ROI is terrible at the moment.
Al lot of people are running the dishwasher, laundry, charging the car when the sun is shining, but financially it isn't needed sadly. The flexible energy contracts aren't interesting when you have solar because when the energy prices are negative, you need to pay when your solar energy is supplied to the grid. So it is cheaper to shut down the solar system and turn the electric heaters on with the windows open. 😢
Here's a wild idea: lay the HVDC lines along major highways, aboveground except for ramps / intersections. It will require more wire, but a lot less planning / opposition drag -- and access for maintenance is eased. Is anyone seriously going to argue "We must preserve the beauty of our concrete / asphalt highways at all costs!!"? Those who argue against new power lines on environmental grounds must be shown to have their heads up their behinds: if we don't transition quickly, their land is soon not going to look anything like it does now. We need to do this quickly.
You're fighting against the idiot part of the governments(an extremely powerful part) that wants things built as cheaply as possible, which they equate to "F*** that landowner and just build the shortest distance". We have a broken society that views a project going 20 years and 1 billion past it's deadline and original cost as being better than a project costing 500 million upfront. All they saw was "200 million versus 500 million".
I suggested this to actual industry people year's ago and got laughed at. I also suggested to fossil fuel pipeline operators running hv transmission towers right over the top of the pipelines or directly adjacent to them. Dual use for land and ease of maintenance to. 😏
Good ideas 👍
Check china and their Ultra Hugh voltage DC… they have built basically all line that exist on the world…. These line can reach 1.2 millions watts…
Agreed!
Also, solar canopied highways would help reduce energy robbing Air Conditioning use during hot summers while simultaneously cut down cable run lengths to the power grid. Another benefit is that most charging stations would be located near major roadways for convenience sake (another saving on cable runs! Placing power along the road may also open up wireless charging on the fly as a premium range extending service and self driving tethered power similar to tow truck services.
I live off-grid. Regarding the use of a washing machine for example, I only use it once my solar batteries reach a certain % level. If the weather is bad, not enough sun, then as a last resort I can use a generator to supplement my battery power. This is rarely needed though as my solar system is fairly well balanced (enough panel to battery ratio) to compensate for poor weather. If I am able to juggle when I use my power loads I'm sure everyone else can too, without too much effort on their part. Welcome to the future!
Great! That may be part of the solution but remember that only roughly 25% of the electricity is used by households. The rest is industry, services, transport (trains), offices, hospitals, schools,... some usages are a bit harder to delay (even though Deutsche Bahn doesn't mind delays that much 😂).
@@tony_mo Hence a need for storage, by batteries, pumped hydro and otherwise The needed world's storage has been evaluated to be around 200 tWh. Many companies are now gearing up to build that capacity over the next 2 decades! A single company, Tesla, is planning to produce 3 tWh of battery capacity a year by 2030... as roughly 1/3 of that would go into their vehicles, and 2/3 towards grid storage, that's 20% of the yearly requirement... from a SINGLE company!
Where are you? Cos you've forgotten one tiny but important factor......people. When your average American can't take their second 10 minute power shower of the day while laundering the clothes they put on that morning and running the dishwasher for the coffee cup they used at breakfast.........well, that's that plan f**ked then isn't it 🙄
Hardly a practical solution for most if us.
@@st-ex8506 Lithium technologies such as those proposed by Tesla are not a rational way for universal energy storage and never will be. We need new solutions ie Liquid Metal Battery. Relatively cheap, more durable and error-proof technologies.
South Australia and Victoria, Australia, have electricity retailers that charge $0 for power use for 2 hours during 12-2pm, which is peak solar supply time. Both states have high roof top solar installation, which means the wholesale price of electricity during 12-2pm is often a negative number, so usage actually returns credit to electricity retailers during those times 😅
Ahh, another Stralian. I'm from western Tasmania. We have the "Cleanest air in the world.' This is mainly due to a relative lack of heavy industry in the southern hemisphere and very little air exchange between hemispheres. In spite of this, Global warming/climate change is happening just as fast here. As it is in the rest of the southern hemisphere. Does Blackout Bowen or any of our many experts on this subject, have an explanation for this fact?
The downside is that during 12-2 PM you could be killed by five different kinds of spiders.
@@christophermay4540 isn't "Blackout Bowen" a name invented by Sky News / Murdoch Media or is that Mania? CO2 spreads uniformly across hemispheres or anywhere else, obviously. It doesn't matter who makes it - primarily the Chinese, who make most of everything - but we all breathe it. Fortunately for Ozzies, energy transition is more profitable for them than just about anybody else.
Footnote. Digressing, I just took a look at some Sky News (Oz) content. The same guys pumping the ""Blackout Bowen" BS are also pumping the MAGA "Trump didn't lose and Georgia shouldn't stick him in jail for treason" BS. Never mind the electricity supply; there must be some pretty wacky kool-aid in that water supply.
@@I_Have_The_Most_Japanese_Music lol, where i am in the North i got Crocodiles on my doorstep too.
@@nethiuz9165 Are they trying to sell you stuff? That would be annoying.
It’s crazy this is a problem in Germany, I work on designing and building high voltage transmission lines just like this one in Texas and we are building them so fast and frequently our company can’t keep up. It makes a huge difference when you don’t have the population and the government constantly TRYING to kill the project.
That's because the German Green party is just a "Say-no-to-everything" party. People driven by slogan and not by ideas with a strong scientific base.
When Germany shutdown the last 3 functioning nuclear plants, the "Greens" were celebrating the event, not caring about the massive increase of energy production by coal and lignite that is the natural consequence. Awful.
This is how you can tell whether people are really rational about environmental concerns or whether they're driven by luddite emotion and superstition.
Germany can get a lot of stuff done because people have a positive gut reaction towards environmentalism. But on the other hand your gut is your gut, and sometimes it's not the best decision-maker. Hence the protests against those essential new overhead lines. Or the closing down of existing nuclear power plants. You can make good arguments against building new ones, but closing down the ones still running when atmospheric CO2 is our most pressing concern was really stupid.
It's also an issue in the states. Maybe they don't face as much opposition to it from the public but you still have the problem of needing to build super long transmission lines to transfer power from IBRs to where it's needed. Also, a 700 km transmission line (over 400 miles) that is mentioned in the video is an extremely long line, no offense but I seriously doubt you're building lines that long "faster than your company can keep up". There are also all sorts of permitting and regulatory issues you run into if you want to cross state lines
@@timoooo7320 They're going to have to be that long in the future. Eventually our high voltage electric grid is going to resemble the fiberoptic Internet backbone grid, spanning the entire globe.
Of course it's going to take a few decades and a lot of metal mining to get that done. But that's where we're headed.
The population density is 5 times higher in Germany than Texas, so it's a lot easier to build HV transmission lines in the middle of nowhere in the US.
From Vietnam here. We have the same problem with solar panels. The North summer is scorching, but the surplus electricity can't be brought from the south to the north, as the high voltage lines are operating at maximum capacity. We have to import electricity from China for this summer. Some rural areas have been cut electricity some times during the day for essential services.
Convert surplus electricity to hydrogen, and store, use, export, or transport by pipelines.
It should be relatively easy to lay a submarine cable
Those types of transmission lines are actually DC, doesn't make sense, I know. But it actually does.
@@Sofus.Sadly politicians would find a way to prevent that, because they love their money
It's not just electricity. It's also water supply. Today i watched a documentary about Vietnam. Some aren't connected to the fresh water supply and some have wells which creates also other problems. The waste water is not cleaned and goes straight into the rivers. Than there are the countries upstream which are building dams and when it's raining and flooding they have to let water out. It's a real problem and it's hitting not just the citizens of Vietnam but also the economy. They should build up a clever and efficient system with the money they still have. If it continues like this the money could be gone and nothing is build up.
I did my batchelors thesis on this, and from what I calculated by far the biggest potential is in smart heating / cooling and in EV charging. Doing demand response with stuff like wash machines can be done, but those represent a very small percentage of total energy use, so they won't make that big of an impact. But smart heating and EV charging could potentially reduce the need for energy storage by more then 50% (I looked at it in the EU, elsewhere it may be different)
Talk to me about smart heating.
@@I_Have_The_Most_Japanese_Music Well, essentially temporarily stopping the electric heating during a significant power deficit, and conversly "pre heating" when there is a power surplus, before projected drop. Buildings in Europe lose about 1C every 3-4 hours during the average European winter, so if people were willing to set an acceptable temperature range, lets say 21-23C, then the smart heating system could use this inertia to shave consumption peaks, and use up energy surpluses.
@@pyroman2918 Okay. I didn't realize it was that simple. Thanks.
It is that simple. You just need money. Insane amounts of it. Only problem is, is if you are paid German wages, as most people living in Germany do 😀. But let's ignore this aspect, because it's an inconvenient constraint in our discourse that, if we simply ignore, everything is all good again.
You can also have 1-2 cubic meter water tank for energy storage. You can heat it up when energy is cheap and it energy from it when energy is expensive.
more than a decade ago, someone wrote that Montana wind alone could produce half of the US electricity need, except that half of the US had to move to Montana.
... or the US update their century-old grids!
Well the good news for you is that continued American under investment in infrastructure for the last fifty years means your Grids (yes plural) need to be renewed anyway - so as you have to spend the money you might as well spend it on making your Grids fit for the 21st Century. There's a company currently building a high voltage line from Iowa to Chicago - they've avoided the usual issues about rights of way and eminent domain by running it alongside interstate highways. I'm surprised the Germans didn't do the same - running it down Autobahn 7 from Hamburg to the South would have given them a fairly direct route.
There is nothing wrong with Montana. A friend of mine once drove through the state on a road trip
@@Peichen01 a friend… once… drove through the state… and nothing noteworthy happened… 😅
Illegal Immigrants: Bet!
Brilliant video, it doesn't matter how many solar panels we make or wind turbines farms we build. Until we start to fix the grid and storage issues, nothing will change or really help.
some countries do have a vast interconnected grid though, like america, where wind and solar are doing wonders for the grid, so much so that the oil companies are running thousands of campaigns trying to stop people from buying solar, and trying to stop the government from building more wind farms
There are 2 types of load:
1. Base load which is consistent day & night.
2. Peak load which is dictated by consumers.
The only zero carbon energy sources that's consistent are nuclear and hydro. We can throw in biomass and biogas too, but their generating capacity aren't as high as nuclear and hydro.
Solar and wind, coupled with suitable energy storage respectively, are more suitable to cover peak load..
Storage is key.
Batteries are already a usable storage medium, efuel and hydrogen not so
If you build enough storage, it gives the dispatchers an energy buffer that provides them with more operational flexibility. Storage also allows for the utilization of some of the excess renewable genetation.
Which doesn't exist and is even more expensive than expanding the grid...
Nope, storage systems are a dream. What is required is a responsive system that can inject as much energy into the grid as is demanded. And that technology existed in Germany until not so long ago.
a key fantasy
A friend of mine has done energy planning for a Danish municipality. Behavioural changes by consumers and fex tariffs are not part of the solution, in his opinion. I have done the maths for myself. The washing machine is the only appliance I can put off using. With 211 washes per year and a consumption of 0.37 kWh, that makes a consumption of about 79 kWh per year that I can postpone. In my case, that's a little more than 1% of my consumption. However, I have a high consumption. Today, private electricity consumption accounts for about one third of total consumption. Roughly speaking, if all Germans wash their laundry off-peak, only about 0.33 % of the peak is shifted. My friend is right. The idea sounds good in theory but is practically irrelevant.
I'm an American living in Japan for the last 2 decades. We use our washing machine and dishwasher just before we go to bed. The machines are too noisy during the day.
I also used to work for a company called Yazaki which makes a passive solar water heater. (Japanese enjoy taking a hot bath before going to bed). It's a simple system; they installed a glass case on your roof and put in water tanks. Even in winter on a cloudy day the water gets heated. They put a pipe from the tanks and hook it into your bathtub. Flip a switch and the water fills the tub.
My father back in Wisconsin back in 1980 built a house with a passive solar system. He has a sun room next to the kitchen and living room. In winter the room provides enough heat to warm the house during the day. At night he uses a pellet oven. He only uses the furnace in the morning. He pays around $40 / mo. in winter for fuel.
I guess that they could use geothermal sources as well like in the onsen
The Dutch engineer came up with a road that has utility chambers underneath that would make everything easier
Well, it's not new idea, or even that clever. For one, burying cables under road would be dumb, burying them beside roads on other hand is normal and much more accessible.
I'm sure digging up roads will garner the maximum amount of popular support.
is this a traditional road made from concrete/asphalt?
I've thought you could make a modular road which allowed drainage through the surface, that would allow easy access to utilities when needed as well (without digging up a road, just removing sections of it for repairs to utilities). I know microplastics are a concern though. I'm not sure how you would design a plastic which didn't "shed" into the ecosystem.
In some places, the consumers can allow utility company to shut down their AC and heating a few hours at a time in a rotating pattern in a given area. It barely impacts each individual home, but has a huge impact at grid scale. Enough so to make turning on peaker plants unnecessary.
I completely agree. If there was a tariff that gave a discount on the understanding that you could be switched off at high demand times, and if they sent a text message to give ten minutes warning, long enough to hit Ctrl-S etc, I would go for it. With smart meters electricity companies already have the ability to turn off individual consumers.
@@VideofoundryNet I'm not talking about your 200 watts computer here. These remote shutoff programs are for kilowatts appliances, like heating and cooling. They never shut down your lights / computer.
We are on time of use in nova scotia, and have thermal storage in the concrete of our home for heating and a large water heater that only heats over night to cut cost and use electricity that would normally be wasted
As I have solar on my roof, I already do hold of my laundry and dishwasher, even car charging, until I have excess. Should I have battery, I would probably be a bit less cautious, but I've learned it's not a problem at all to do this.
Now, there are even automation options, enabling you to start the wash cycle only when excess energy in the solar production exceeds specific threshold. Same for car chargers.
With smart solutions like this in every home, the load on the grid would be much more manageable.
Not everyone can afford it, though - I can say that our home energy system was not cheap - and we still don't have battery.
I agree. My PV ist rather small (5kWp) as is my battery (4.7kWh). Last years total showed a decrease in costs of 1200 Euro (power only), plus additional income of 400 Euro for exported energy (Located in BW). Pricing is another good motivation for moving consumption times, I think.
I expect power consumption to be billed by hourly prices in the long run, after everybody got his smart meter. That will cause a shift in consumption times, because people will notice the difference.
Exactly - I'm in the fortunate position of being both retired and living in Southern Spain. When it's a dark cloudy day I don't do clothes washing, but I do everything I can during my peak production hours (between 11 00- 15.00 usually) - I do have a battery and that powers the house overnight. I usually generate a surplus in the afternoon - so far this year, I've used a little under 60KWh from the Grid and supplied about 900KWh to them (but the weather has been strange this year) - over the course of a year I usually have a surplus of about 800KWh.There's room to expand the system (I've figured I could get my surplus up to almost 2,500 - 3,000KWh) if I added some extra panels - but the Spanish Grid doesn't want domestic users in surplus so there are no financial incentives to do so. But I don't have any "smart" solutions - it's just me scheduling the pool pump to run in the day....
Where I live the battery pays for itself by selling back electricity during peak demand so they don’t have to fire up a peaker plant. Batteries are saving a ton of money for everyone including the utility and they’re getting cheaper quickly
@@chrishaberbosch1029 Depends on whether there is a difference between what you pay for used energy and what is refunded for energy you supply. In Germany you pay about three times a much for energy you need from the grid than the utilities pay for supplied energy.
@@wora1111 That's kind of normal... the grid operator bears the costs of transportation as well as the ones of insuring supply at ALL time, you don't. They also pay taxes that you don't. They also pay you a fixed cost per kWh, while having to dispose or extra power, during peak solar-generating times, at a cost which can be less than what they pay you. Generating costs are only a fraction of electricity's total costs. Here in France, I am in the same case as you are...
In terms of transporting huge amounts of power over huge distances, and problems with landowners, the solution is: 1. Run the cables along side or under public roads or railway lines because then there is no permission from private land owners needed. 2. Use the latest super high voltage direct current technology, which has be shown suitable for potentially creating a truly global single mains electricity grid.
I think it is much cheaper to buy out land from land owners than digging up roads or railways. For underground cable the size of südlink you need a very big trench.
@@XDJaegermeister I said "along side or under"; they wouldnt need to dig up the act railway lines or roads lol.
@@TimLongson How do you get up to 6 14cm in diameter cabels under the lenght of the road? Pls explaine a cost effective solution... I'm sure not one exists.
And next to the road is not usefull too. You need 7,7m width at the top and 4,2m at the bottom. It is rare to find such wide areas right next to the roads. And if the road is raised a bit, it has to be much wider. And high voltage cabels need to be buried much deeper. Your solution works for much lower voltages, but not for cables the size needed for connecting areas much farther away.
@@XDJaegermeister how? There's several ways, one example is Elon Musk's Boarding company could dig BELOW them.
@@TimLongson Nice troll. First you want it done. Second you want it cheap. Both things Elon can't deliver.
Yes! I live in Phoenix AZ and have Enphase solarI with batteries. With just a little bit of monitoring our system on our app we can determine the best time for heavy loads until we have enough solar and battery power. It's not difficult. In May and June we can start the washer by 8:00 am and the dryer by 9:00am. I have not paid anything for electricity in 2023 and have a 175 dollar credit so far this year. Our system is about 8 months old and we love it!
The downside: at some point you may need to go outside and it's Arizona.
Yuma, Arizona and Aswan Egypt are the two sunniest cities on Earth. Lodwar , Kenya may actually be the best place for solar power. In all 3 locations it would be very good for powering air conditioning .
Intermittency. Talk to the Power Engineers about synchronisation and the ability to route power from one region to another. As a rule of thumb it is a bad idea to connect wind turbines, forming more than 20 percent of total grid capacity, as this will put grid stability at risk.
Some places are already 100 per cent renewables.
Ive been telling people for a decade now that what we really need is a better grid, not just in germany but in the entire EU. Instead of everyone focusing on storage only. Technically we would need zero storage because all the energy we can produce will be used, at some place in the world. Ofc practically we do need storage and it is a good thing to have. But in general transferring the energy to where it is needed is always better than storing it due to losses, both in efficiency and space.
When there is no wind, there is often no wind anywhere (on the same continent). At night, one entire half of the planet is in darkness. Even with a perfect grid (which has distance limitations), we will still need nuclear, gas or coal power stations to replace the renewables at certain times, almost every day. "Net zero" is impossible - Soeren Hansen: Why wind and solar will not work.
Hydrogen, dams, the hydrogen portfolio, batteries, or geothermal are all available.
Design upgrades are also needed.
In any case, innovation will have to precede carbon capture in creating a more profitable energy logistics society.
I have been saying this for years, even before renewables became a hot topic. Nope, it does not matter how long your nuclear reactor can run 24/7 once filled with fuel if a tree cut your power lines, and once the reactor needs to shut down for few months for refueling and maintenance you need to bring in equal amount of power from somewhere else. The grid needs spare capacity and backup connections so it actually works when needed IRL, not just on paper.
Germany still has several 220kV north-south lines that were not upgraded, at least according to ENTSO-E map, their upgrade to 400kV could perhaps help a little bit with lack of transmission capacity. But certainly it would not be enough. Another option could perhaps be addition of 50Hz lines to existing 16.7Hz power lines now serving railways, they have quite extensive grid and it seems like there could be three north-south corridors, but the question is whether there is way how to add something with higher voltage than 110kV to those lines and still fit into designed width of corridor.
When the conditions are favourable it should also be possible to build large enough pump-storage power plant that could run for several days. One such project was proposed between Lipno and Aschach, but other places could also exist.
Excellent summary of this complex but necessary area that I've spent most of the last decade working on as an economist preparing business cases for government underwriting of new transmission to bring on more renewables and diversify supply, in Australia. Demand response, consumer energy resources are also in the mix. Having attempted to learn German, I love the term "Dunkelflaute" and am happy to see it used here.
This is so underrated thank you for making this video
We could also use our houses as batteryes.
We could heat the house a little hotter when energy is cheep and have it a little colder when energy is expensive. For houses that are isolated well you could actually store a disent amount of energy and if all houses did it could make a huge difference, at least places where you have heatpumps and airconditioning.
there are houses like this that already exist, using heat pumps and other technology to essentially create an energy loop using the byproducts of ther other energy uses in the house, including using expelled C02, to use as power by other systems.
the issue is that all that shit is just so fucking expensive. we have a LOT of really useful tech we can use right now to make a LOT cleaner systems...but it's all about money... if something is too expensive it wont get widespread adoption and, the oil/coal/gas companies that are already making money hand over fist, can afford to throw money at other energy uses/systems to keep them from usurping their monopoly.
Yeah, producing tons (literally) of batteries for BILLIONS of homes would be great for the environment! /s
@@PistonAvatarGuy no its not actual batteries, but more like storing heat in a house and having the heat be an energy source that can be used like a battery.
@@gabrieldsouza6541 That doesn't really help anything. In much of the world, getting heat out of homes is the issue. If you're talking about converting heat into electrical energy, that's never been done efficiently. Storing energy as heat energy is just inefficient in general.
@@PistonAvatarGuy district heating?
We have solar + batteries at home, and it works great. We do try to charge our electric cars and do laundry etc. when the Sun is up, but the batteries give us a huge amount of flexibility.
So you dont work
The problem with power companies charging more or less relative to supply is that we'd have to trust them to be honest, to fairly compensate those who do it well, and to not just drive up rates across the board. If rates fluctuate, then it becomes much easier to slip in a few extra charges here and there without getting caught. There would at least need to be MASSIVE penalties, "all profits made via this method, PLUS" type penalties, to discourage unfair dealing.
10:25 - Yes, that is vehicle-to-grid (V2G). Could have expanded on this a lot more in the video. EVs are essentially extra large home batteries. With the rise of EVs, we're now talking about *gigawatts* of power evenly distributed right throughout the most heavily populated areas!
This is really another way of getting towards a "smart grid". A smart grid allows us to wring out big efficiencies gains from *existing* grid infrastructure using batteries and software.
By then, charging stations will have built-in software that act as "energy brokers". They'll have a live cloud connection to the utilities and will work to get the best price for the home owners while also stabilizing the grid based on home owner's preferences and the state of charge of the EV's battery. Of course, the very same charging software will also charge the EVs the most during daytime when renewables are peaking and electricity prices are the lowest.
California has bill 233 under discussion that will make V2G *mandatory* on all EVs sold there. Also California will have a requirement for home "sub-metering" which is another important function to help manage V2G better. California's moves show how important V2G will be to the grid problems outlined in this video.
Elon Musk, who has devoted some time and resources looking into that problem, is against that solution. EV batteries are now designed to last the entirety of the vehicle's life... provided it is used only for the purpose of transportation. If you cycle your EV's battery much more because it is used to stabilized the grid, then you will defeat that purpose... and replacing an EV battery costs MUCH MORE, and use more precious resources, than a battery specifically designed for grid storage!
@@st-ex8506 Elon Musk wants to sell home and commercial batteries. He's said on many investor calls that the grid & home battery side Tesla's business will be _multiples_ the size of the EV business. He's is correct on that! Because not everyone drives but sure as sunshine everyone uses electricity. The home & industry sectors are several times the transportation sector as well.
Elon Musk hasn't directly stated that V2G is any of those things you mentioned. Last interview I read about, Musk said V2G isn't useful without a home battery and his reason behind it was silly. He said the house would go dark off if you disconnected the EV. Umm, no. He must be thinking of an "off-grid" system which V2G is not. All commercial home battery systems are "grid-tie" systems with a CT sensor to control power flow to the grid and same thing with V2G. They operate in parallel with the grid.
Yes, as Tesla's CEO, Musk would want to keep cost and complexity down and V2G goes against that. A rational reason but its not looking at the bigger picture. Musk's position also goes against Tesla's own motto of being an _energy_ company and not just a car company. It is very true in Tesla's case with the depth and breadth of their product line: solar, grid-scale and home battery, motor design, battery design, Giga factories, expansive charger network, etc.
@@st-ex8506 Also need to delve into some technical details of V2G versus EV traction motor operation…
Its not just about cycle count but actual heating from electrical power draw that causes degradation. And V2G's smaller power load is a walk in the park compared to the brutal conditions that the same battery operates in while actually driving an EV.
V2G may only need some 2000W to provide a big benefit to the grid. However, the battery in EV needs to provide some 5000W to 10,000W on freeway. In acceleration, it needs some 20,000W to 250,000W or more! The mid-entry Model 3 is 455hp which is some 340,000 watts at full power. The Tesla Plaid is rated at 1100 horsepower which equates to over 800,000 watts during its hardest acceleration and need to add some 10% to cover motor and inverter heating. Those dwarf V2G.
So an EV's normal operation and especially its very heavy amps in acceleration make V2G a cakewalk in comparison. For reference, a clothes dryer is one of the largest appliances in the home and pulls some 4500W.
Keep in mind that V2G will have many thousands of vehicles on the grid for a given region. If each V2G vehicle was exporting 2000W then only 500 such vehicles would provide 1 megawatt of power. All of which will be readily consumed by the same home or their neighbors home directly without flowing onto the grid. That exported power goes up to the secondary winding of the neighborhood transformer and right into their neighbors homes thereby unloading the grid - ideally during the evening hours when the grid experiences its most heavy stress. Utilities can offer "surge pricing" to entice V2G participation during these times. It beats firing up a very dirty and expensive "peaker plant".
Also the cycle life of the newer iron based cathode LFP batteries is significantly more than the older Lithium NMC batteries. Tesla already transitioned to LFP for their EVs except for their higher end models.
Ultimately, it will be up to the customer to choose how much of V2G to participate in. After watching the problems described in this video, the benefits of V2G are too great to ignore.
Furthermore, its not just about V2G but also about V2L (vehicle-to-load). Your EV can provide huge home appliance level power to your camp site, picnic, construction yard, etc. A simple toaster uses 1500W and would overload the common noisy dirty gasoline generators. But an EV already has this power and more without dragging along a generator to your picnic or construction worksite. You basically can have a home theater with appliances running your whole campsite from a single EV without the toxic fumes and generator noise.
Tesla will be including V2G and V2L in their EVs by 2025. Otherwise, those common everyday use case scenarios above will be competitive features lacking from Tesla which other manufacturers have. Its also a feature totally lacking in internal combustion vehicles which can only further accelerate the EV transition. In the end, the marketplace and government regulations will dictate this and not Elon Musk.
@@beyondfossil I could not tell, without spending some time researching, what Musk has exactly said and not said on the topic of V2G. However, I know for sure that a) a battery optimized for grid storage is much cheaper, per unit of capacity, than one optimized for a mobile application, and b) using a vehicle’s battery for grid balancing will decrease its life expectancy. If that battery happens to be structural, and can’t be replaced, then it will decrease the whole vehicle’s life expectancy.
Therefore, V2G is no optimal solution… Musk saying it explicitly or not! It is doable, but that usage of vehicles’ batteries should be quite generously compensated by the grid operator.
@@st-ex8506 Of course one can't argue there is no extra wear on the battery. But have to look at the pros vs cons. And I think you're far over-weighing the cons and under-weighing the pros.
A home literally has _days_ of power *localized* right in its garage and car ownership in the western world is especially high. This directly and positively benefits the grid expansion crisis expounded on by the video.
I'll add the duty cycle of V2G is only _fractions_ of a day versus the 24x7 full-duty nature of home and grid-scale batteries and may kick in only during the evening portion of the power duck curve. And, as mentioned in previous, the intensity of power output of V2G is much less than EV's normal driving load requirements.
Another benefit is the potential ability to power a through a total grid blackout with _whole home_ power. As climate change hits harder & more frequent with extreme weather and as the grid infrastructure ages, grid blackouts may become more common. An EV's battery has enough power to run a home _easily_ all evening until morning and even for days if economizing.
As we move deeper into the 21st century, not having some electrical storage & backup power in a home will seem antiquated - maybe like not having a microwave oven or a big screen TV today. But EV owners will already have a leg up.
The "Swiss army knife" that is the EV's battery and inverter will only further help accelerate EV adoption around the world. It adds *value* to car ownership unlike anything imaginable in the old internal combustion world and *at scale* too.
Option 3: go nuclear
You lost me at the hydrogen, it’s absolutely the worst way to store energy it’s so inefficient
It is ridiculous wasteful for burning it. Maybe turn it into aircraft fuel would be good because they can't run on batteries
As the world electrifies this issue will diminish. When most homes use electric cars every home will essentially have a very large battery that can be charged when clean energy is cheap and abundant. Same as how we use water reservoirs as large batteries by pumping water when the energy is cheap and using the turbines as generators when its expensive
Québec does not have that issue, but that's a rather special case. In the 70s, the government decided to build dams a thousand kilometers north of the populated centers in order to meet the growing demand for electricity. The very first 735 KV lines were designed specifically for the needs of that project. Since then, Québec has built an absolutely massive network of high voltage lines that stretch from the dams up north and south almost all the way to New York.
More recently, Newfoundland built an underwater cable to Labrador and Nova-Scotia. The grid in eastern Canada isn't quite where it needs to be, but the recent upgrades are going to go a long way to get us there.
Quebec is a part of Canada, imagine if you demanded the same electricity price in all of Canada. It is nice that Quebec has good internal high voltage so has some parts of Germany. They are in reality about three areas with too low capacity between them but insist in one price zone.
Upgrade too 750kV could be possible, in theory, certainly same voltage is used on long distance lines in Ukraine and other former USSR countries, with two lines going to Poland and Hungary. So perhaps adoption of this could significantly increase transmission capacity in Germany.
Its not just a simple upgrade. 750 KV requires towers that are higher and wires that are spaced further appart. Québec is still building 735 KV AC lines as they are already widely used on the network, but just about everywhere else, long distance transmission is heading toward HVDC lines. The new lines in Eastern Canada are HVDC. Trans-frontier lines from Québec are being planed as HVDC lines, so it could very well be that HVDC could end up seeing wider adoption in Québec.
@@jonathanlanglois2742 Problem is that in case of Germany the distances will not be that long, something between 100 km and 500 km, that is, If I am not mistaken, too short for HVDC to be economical.
@@MrToradragon I guess that I do have a different perspective. It is true that distances in Canada can be absolutely enormous. The other important factor is that in Québec, most of our homes are heating with electricity. That makes us, per capita, some of the biggest consumers of electricity on the planet. A single 735 KV line can do the job of a trio of 315KV lines. 735 KV lines were invented in Québec specifically for the James Bay project. It wouldn't have been economical to build 18 315 KV lines.
thank you for another excellent documentary - well described and accessible :)
Our pleasure! 🌸
@@DWPlanetA We must face facts. Alternative energy just isn't ready for prime time. Maybe in 50 or 100 years but not now. You cannot just wish that technology will appear when you want it to, this is what a child believes not an adult.
@@autodidact537 maybe you should learn some engineering and engineering history. I'm an engineer and see how it is possible.
If humans weren't able to adapt we'd still be able running around in hunter gatherer tribes, and people like you would be telling us that the wheel is some kind of evil sorcery.
A hundred years ago human flight was in its infancy, and in fifty years we managed to send people to the moon.
Already there's a plethora of proven sustainable power technologies developed. We just need to apply it at scale. Just as we did when we started using steam power, coal, oil, etc.
I believe you forgot option number 3, switching to nuclear which is the best system of energy production
@acrocent9788 Conventional nuclear power still has a few challenges. We made a video on the topic a while back that you might like: czcams.com/video/9X00al1FsjM/video.html
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Nuclear is base load and thus it gets in the way of true renewable energy.
Its not just their flakiness, renewables are also restricted by region, can't build a dam in a flat region with no water, can't build solar in a high latitude place that's dark half the year, can't build geothermal in an area where there is no easily accessible heat sources, can't build wind in a calm region. You can build a fuel based power plant (be it nuclear, gas, coal) anywhere.
Not exactly anywhere. Steam turbine powered plants still need water, and droughts and floods shut them down -- as we've learned the hard way, only recently. Also the hotter it gets the less efficient they are. So ironically the very greenhouse effect they cause also makes them less reliable.
Also the more intermittent electricity infrastructure comes online the more load-following the remaining fission and combustion plants must become if they're to be of any use. And since people can save money from producing their own power, even if it's only part of the time, you can't stop intermittent renewables infrastructure from growing massively.
So whether you like it or not, the demand for temporary energy storage will increase dramatically, as well as the need for power transmission across thousands of kilometers, not just a couple hundred at most.
Here in Brazil, wind energy is produced in the northeast, while the largest consumer market is in the southeast. So it's a challenge, but at least the government has been holding auctions to build new transmission lines.
The problem at present is connecting the only state in the country that is outside the national electricity system, because the future transmission line passes through indigenous lands.
burying HV cables? Ground impedance would like to have word with you.
"1.1 trillion dollar of investment every year until 2050 and that's excluding new solar panels and wind turbines." - insane.
We need nuclear energy.
Why is that insane again? That's well under 1% of total global GDP. 🤔
Global energy investment for all of 2023 per the eia is est to be 2.7trillion. 👍🏻
Nuclear energy is too expensive. Thats why mostly old ones get replaced. The percentage of nuclear power on the total power generated in the world is going down for quite some years already.
@@freeforester1717 There is a reason why they rejected that idea of small nukes in the 50s. Too many locations to supervise, radioactive isotopes in too many places, perfect targets to steal material for dirty bombs.
I agree we should to nuclear power too
One thing not mentioned is what is needed to stabilize the grid. Wind turbines can't. Solar panels can't. It's big power stations that do that, like coal power plants and nuclear plants. If nothing stabilize the grid it will collapse within minutes. To move energy from one part of the country to the other the stabilizers are also needed. In Sweden a power line was built thru the country (it took only 23 years...) and can now only transport half of the planned energy, due to lack of stability.
A someone said, making electricity is like dancing tango with three participants! The producer, the consumer and the grid.
In the UK the excellent energy provider 'Octopus Energy' is now rewarding UK customers with large export payments by discharging their home battery storage at the peak 4-7pm period.
Also they have an export payment tariff that varies every 30 minutes depending on the demand on the grid vs supply. If demand is alot higher than supply they will also reward the customer with a large export payment again. Turning the customer into a valuable generator on the grid!
For a lot of applications you could just as well use that solar power to heat a big stone in your yard and draw the heat from it during winter time. Problem gone.
Our school does exactly that. But I wonder whether you have an idea about the size of the 'stone' needed. Usually it is smarter to fill a well isolated pool of a mix stones and water
Actually, water is best. It has the highest specific heat of any substance.
@@christophermay4540 Important is less the specific heat as related to mass) as rather the heat capacity per volume. For high volumes the material of the container also has to be taken into account.
Were called electric storage heaters!, well insulated with a fan to distribute the stored heat as needed.
Thanks for this video
I only really noticed this when I realised that my DNO would need to be notified if I had a larger solar array, and then if there's too large an array, I'd have to pay even more to upgrade.
This is specially holding countries back in the global south, that are also in the "global sun belt"
I am VERY tightfisted (very low income) so when it comes to energy I've now got my average daily consumption down to under 5kWh. I would be more than happy to use energy hungry items (washing machine, cooker etc) during times when the grid is less under stress but there needs to be some sort of reward for doing so as well as a notification system. Without those it would fail.
Saw an intersting video the other day regarding energy transmission where they are starting to switch from AC to DC (or is the other way round...) due to the much better long distance transmission capability.
11:00 When you talk about those huge expenditures, such as this $ 1 trillion, you need to keep in mind that such huge expenditures are always being made, as old equipment is replaced, regardless of whether you are innovating or not. So the net cost of the conversion is probably going to be much less than would first seem to be the case.
damn...you could give 40 million households a 25k full of-grid system and be done with all of the grid problems and people would have free electricy...
I know 25k sounds low for a off grid system if you live in germany or the US, but if you do it DIY you can get for that 10KWP solar and 80kwh battery and you can put that battery in a car and never use fuel ever again
Or you could just forget the renewables mumbo jumbo and use nuclear, which would be a very nice idea in the middle of a climate crisis
Or at least keep existing plants open!
Yes. But in Germany they insist on going backwards to more carbon bases electricity by switching off perfectly functional nuclear plants. It's madness
the longer the distance the higher the resistance, let alone the maintenance. Is that really feasible and is it adequate to connect south and north germany only? or germany must conncet with many other countries that are even further?
There actually is a unified grid across Europe, but politicians do not really understand that and have little influence across the borders of their own country. The two control centers for the European grid are located in Germany and Switzerland and usually make certain, no problems will arise. For that they have to have a good feeling of the expected need for energy for the next hours and days and how to guarantee the supply. That is, what the guy from TenneT said. Interpreting weather reports is harder that just looking at the schedule of power generation of a coal plant.
@@wora1111 yes, there is a unified grid but, what I know about Germany is that they may supply electricity from the borders of France. Is it practically possible to supply electricity from Spain in Germany for example or is this just economically unsustainable?
@@georgioskaraiskakis2725 In order to control the flow of energy you would have to turn off some connections. In Realität most of the Spanish energy would be consumed in southern France and French energy would be deliver to Germany, probably passing through Switzerland.
edit: Number of typos reduced
The European Super Grid is still a long way off, but the ambitious plan is a European interconnected electricity grid that would also extend to countries in North Africa and the Middle East for example. (Read more here: 🔗 www.eyes-on-europe.eu/the-european-super-grid-a-solution-to-the-eus-energy-problems/.)
@@DWPlanetA Hmm, I am somewhat less optimistic. I am old enough to have seen lots of prophecies in the last 50 years that proved to be hypes and wishes but not things that could be implemented.
Here is another wild idea: let people easily install solar and wind in households and roofs, battery storage in the cellar - even if the providers install them - no need for changing the grid then. We don’t need hydrogen, the infrastructure is crazy difficult and cost-intensive
I have a 30 kWP solar unit. I only use my laundry and dishwasher etc during the day. Quite the education in becoming mor efficient.
And people will still claim that renewables are less expensive than nuclear. I suppose that they might be, as long as you ignore the grid upgrades and the energy storage needed to make them viable on a large scale. Imagine if we lived in a world where people chose the most simple and effective option, what a world that would be.
Renewables (sun and wind), coupled with the necessary storage, are already cheaper than nuclear power... especially NEW nuclear capacity!
@@st-ex8506 Completely wrong. There are almost no assessments of the cost of wind and solar which include the cost of storage (or the costs associated with the variability of wind and solar in general), this is why they always appear to be less expensive. Heck, in this video, it shows that the cost of the storage systems and grid upgrades needed to make wind and solar viable on a large scale would cost as much as covering ALL of the global demand for electricity using nuclear, and that doesn't even include the cost of the wind and solar energy systems.
If we were to adopt the French model for building nuclear reactors, the cost of NEW nuclear could be significantly reduced, it's only expensive now because the power plants are built one at a time and the economies of scale are made irrelevant.
Edit: And if you believe that industry can make use of solar and wind on a large scale, ask yourself why Tesla never achieved their goal of running their Nevada Gigafactory on solar and wind energy produced in the vicinity factory. Tesla is (supposedly) a solar energy company and produces batteries directly on site, yet they still can't make the economics work, and people like you don't find that strange?
I am glad that the Canadian govt didn't give up nuclear. The Canadian nuclear fleet is also expanding with federal incentives
We have the same issue in Australia. Loads of sunshine, but getting the solar energy to capital cities is proving a big headache.
The washing machine is not the problem. The clothes dryes is as it consumes 4-8 times the electricity. I really would have liked that DW got such details right as that might educate people way more. If it creates large amounts of heat for long periods of time it uses a lot of electricity; simple "rule".
In Germany dryers are uncommon. The clothesline does the job.
Wouldn't it be great if there was an energy source that was green, powerful, has a small footprint, that produced only a small amount of concentrated solid waste, and you could put it almost anywhere?
I think I've heard about it--It's called Chernobyl and it's going to be operating for at least another 20,000 years. By design it's impossible for it to meltdown, it uses a closed fuel cycle, and it produces energy too cheap to meter, plus weapons that can easily destroy life on this planet (intentionally). The only downside is that we keep finding out with every disaster that the best people in the field have no fucking idea what to do, are arguing about whether or not there will be a hydrogen explosion, and long after the fact can't even explain what happened. Fortunately they don't care, absolutely believe the Soviet government that only 51 people died as a result, and have destroyed their credibility many times over by repeatedly telling the public that all problems have been solved.
The carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels are actually beneficial. Benefits include increased agricultural yields (main effect) reduced winter heating costs and fewer deaths from hypothermia.
The official death toll from Chernobyl was 31, however, there were hundreds of additional cases of paediatric thyroid cancer in the region exposed to the fall out. The vast majority of the thyroid cancer patients were cured by thyroidectomy and radioactive iodine therapy.
Nuclear power is safer than rooftop solar which is safer than coal.
A major nuclear war would be catastrophic with many millions of casualties. The survivors would also have to endure a nuclear winter. The US industrial military complex needs to stop the vilification of Russia and China.
The major powers need to live in peace.
Yes, I would definitely hold off on doing dishes or laundry if it meant saving money on my electric bill. I think we definitely need to start investing in a better grid as well.
I really think there needs to be more of these "proconsumers". My theory is that if more electricity customers were enabled by the power companies (for a fee for the equipment) to produce as much of their power themselves, there would be a whole lot less demand for power from the "grid" itself. This would make their task MUCH less difficult.
One of the biggest advantages of renewables is the ability to produce the power right at the place it will be used.
Our centralized "grid" is not designed this way, and it's clear that the people in charge don't understand the potential of power production at point of consumption.
It's literally HUGE! Look at what percentage of their electricity Australia produces just from 1/3 of households. Now imagine 2/3 of household and most businesses too.
That's a whole lot of power.
To make prosumer contribution/usage more effective and stable if they have local battery storage, we could design systems to contribute exactly in proportion to the daily electrical demand curve, or even the deficit curve, customized for each system based on its state of battery charge and solar predictions. This information could be made available on the Internet for smart inverters to use.
I love how these vidéo is taking every precotion needed to not say "nuclear" while speaking of decarbonated pilotable solution... Well expect for these video doesn't take in account magnitude..
Thorium cycle nukes (LFTRs) are another option for base load demand. Unfortunately there would be years of development before this could be commercially viable.
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This proposed idea is exactly what is needed and exactly where we are heading in the future
Yes, you did ho a problem and solution. One issue I can see is that the people who can pay the most for energy will be able to guy it all up if everything gets connected but if there are regions that are much smaller, that would be much better in many ways too. If the coal company is supplying the region it is in then they can have a clearer and more concise dialogue with the smaller population that they serve. With interconnections, the supply and demand becomes much more abstract to both suppliers and demanders. I like to grow my own food and buy locally so I can know what goes into it and why. I also like that same concept for power generation.
Small is beautiful!
each home or house should generate its own power.
Facts and have a small central grid if anyone has problems.
Sweden and France each have nuclear power. They don't have the same worries as Germany when it comes to energy supply.
70% of the energy we consume are hydrocarbons. Electricity only represents 30% of the energy we consume. Germany has some of the most expensive electricity in Europe in part due to having invested heavily in renewables while maintaining enough on demand electricity (coal and gas) to provide power when renewables are producing little. Consequently, Germans overwhelmingly use gas for heat and to power many of their industrial processes. Electricity is just too expensive. So Germany is reducing its carbon footprint on electricity generation which accounts for only 30% of energy used. The high cost of electricity will slow the electrification of other processes and slow the replacement of hydrocarbons which still account for 2/3 of energy used: heating, transportation, industry, agriculture.
I believe there is currently strong opposition in Germany to banning the sale of new gas and oil furnaces, and the measure is unlikely to be adopted.
I've had roof-mounted PV since 2014 (in Texas) and I'm just about to get 2 battery backups. (They weren't available in 2014).
I'm reasonably certain I will be essentially off-grid, so yes, I would wait until there was sufficient green energy available. ;)
Sodium batteries
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As to the question of time shifting your load? Yes…even though my provider offers no ToD billing, it’s a minor change to my schedule and helps balance the grid.
My washer runs late at night or overnight, then my dryer, if I’m not hanging the clothes outside, runs at bedtime. My dishwasher has a 4h delay start that I usually hit sometime between 2000 and 2300. My car charges after midnight. My heat runs early morning/late night to boost the temps then coasts most, if not all of the day.
In SoCal, grid scale battery parks are being installed to soak up excess daylight solar production and allow it to be dispatched into the early evening.
PS - in some areas Tesla home power walls are being centrally controlled so that home power will act as a virtual power plant.
It is still a drop in the ocean of needs. Lithium technologies like Tesla are not a rational solution for energy storage.
Or, you could reactivate those dormant nuclear reactors that you have deactivated & build new ones. There was enough clean energy on 15th January 2023 to power Germany for a day, but France also had enough clean energy on that day to power their entire country, and for every day before that date, and for every day after... right to today...
France depended on german power for quite some time. They subsidize electric power in france because nuclear power is not cheap. They had to nationalize the EDF because they were bankrupt with app 100bio dollars in debt from keeping the old dinosaurs running and now they need to build new ones to replace the old ones. Worldwide mainly old nuclear power plants get replaced and the percentage of nuclear power on the power generated is going down for quite some years already.
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It's all about building that "road". Those who get it right early will be the first to pick the fruits. The journey is not easy, but sustainability comes with it's own rewards.
Defintely would.Where I live, we can already see demand on the supply system, and I turn off the heat pump or differ heavy power usage based on that where I can. It is actually simple.
Eating a plant based diet is the single most effective way to reduce our individual impact while it is very easy compared to other challenges.
Yes
No actually its not. In northern climates for half the year plant based products must be shipped for over 1000 miles whereas an animal can be harvested from a few miles away. Far more sustainable to have local food!
Delusional!
@@popandbob Only a small percentage of ghg emissions in the food production comes from transportation. Meanwhile it often takes way more transportation to import animal feed which is the case for most animal products produced.
@@vincentcarl9907 You can read the study by J.Poore Reducing food's environmental impact through producers and consumers. Also last year Stanford university conducted a study where they stated that we could reduce our individual emissions by 68% when avoiding meat and dairy.
In fact, nuclear energy is still the most de facto safe and stable energy in the world.
In the US we have regional power pools which can move blocks of power around reasonably well. What is missing is a national HVDC network to move power between regions.
There are no technical issues, we know how to do it. But we have too many government agencies to deal with. Any one of them can say no. The other issue is that if you build a transmission line from North Dakota to Boston there will be a lot of people inconvenienced along the way. They will have a huge power line in their backyard but derive no benefit from it.
Very informative thanks
reopen your nuclear power plants
Another issue that is being ignored is that if we are to achieve Net Zero by 2050 we will have to increase the mining of Rare Earth Elements, Rare Earth Metals and Rare Earth Minerals by 1500%. Graphite is classified as a Critically short mineral with a known global reserve of 330 million tonnes, currently we mine 1 million tonnes per year so this is sustainable in the long term. However if we increase our production to 15 million tonnes we will have exhausted our reserve by 2050.
I already have dynamic pricing (Tibber) and the price very well matches renewable availability. This is, how my car charges, when electricity is cheap (price is sometimes even negative like last Sunday). Also my heat pump will mostly use low price power, when installation is finished and also other devices (dish washer, laundry, oven) in my home run preferably, when prices are low. From January to June, my average price was 26 ct/kWh, while most people have 30-60 ct/kWh (40 ct/kWh are the mean) depending on their contract and when they switched it last time.
Yes, but Germany insists on one price zone despite the grid is divided with limited transmission capacity between the areas.
@@Jakob_DK You are totally right and I'm really waiting for the day, we get two or more bidding zones. I live in bavaria and I hate our government for blocking everything related to transmission lines and wind energy harvesting. We externalizing cost of our behaviour to other states that have way less money. If we get divided in bidding zones, my electrical prices will be even more below the fixed rate prices of my neighbours. But I also know, that I will have to pay the price for living here through e.g., other consumables.
I hope, that our bavarian government will learn their lessons, better yesterday than tomorrow. If we keep acting like "we" do currently, bavaria will see a massive de-industrialization and we will see e.g., a renaming of "Bayerische Motoren-Werke" to "Bremer Motoren-Werke". I think, if this could happen, we will find wired ways to compensate the companies, spending enormous money to keep the industry here. But the money will be taken from other areas like schools, social stuff,...
All this makes me nervous and angry, because I understand all the implications and I know the solutions, but I'm only someone with a very silent voice.
@@the78mole
Well you pay to stop wind turbines and other power to be produced in the south (and reverse with solar)
Those cost makes industries less competitive and take money from schools, you don’t have to support industry you need a market reflecting the realities of the grid.
Wind in the north lowers spot electricity price (day a head) but limits of grid makes it necessary to pay to stop wind turbines and pay to start gas turbines while consumption increases with the low “day a head” price.
@@Jakob_DK Yes, I know, how it "works", when we have wind in the north and solar in the south. But the reality in germany is also, that the industry does not pay the large piece of the infrastructure cost (Netzentgelte), they mostly pay the average spot market price. The infrastructure is payed mostly by private households and small to medium companies. It is simply a lie, that germany has the highest prices, if you do not refer only to household electricity.
But if we do a split, the infrastructure cost will swap over to the spot market prices of the part that has less production while the prices in the region with high production will get deadly cheap prices. For bavaria this means, we will have deadly cheap prices in summertime, but only for a few hours during the day, while the north will heave low prices most time of the year (even during the night), especially in wintertime.
Industry in Baviaria (or the south of germany in general) is fu** up, when the split is finally executed. We can not build enough transission lines and wind power until this event...
Storage is essential to the smart grid. Batteries are but 1 option.
For individual homes, batteries are the solution that currently make the most sense.
The "grid" has many options.
CA, USA produces too much power on sunny days now that is essentially wasted.
A smart grid could funnel this excess North and East or South to Mexico.
As an off gridder, I only charge my riding mower on days with good sun.
I only use high power loads like air compressor or drill press when energy is available.
I only use my instant pot when I have good sunshine.
I will crank up Lil' Genny if I need A/C tho - LOL.
By upgrading batteries, I have turned 5 generator hours a night during Summer into 5 hours a week.
Later this year, when I install new panels, battery and inverter,
I hope to make that 5 hours a month or less. 5 hours a year would be OK with me! :)
I’m already used to doing laundry at around 10-11am, when the morning electricity rush is over and solar panels start producing again. It would be good to have discounted energy when it’s the right time of the day…
In Ireland we only have one grid company so they have a monopoly and charge between 100,000 and 200,000 per MW to connect a winner or solar farm to it. In addition to this it costs a lot to get planning permission for a generator and nuisance objectors can hold up planning for years. There are schemes for community energy that are not allowed to generate profit for shareholders, profits can only go to the community. So we have a situation where the large scale operators can afford to build generators and communities could build them but who is going to spend hundreds or thousands of hours or invest in a project that gives no return to those who put in the effort. There is a whole sector in the middle that are left out and who would gladly invest in medium scale renewables, keeping the investment and profits local and having the potential for much greater return for our economy.
The issue here is transmission lines, and battery backup, transmission to move the power here needed, and batteries to soak up the excess generation during the high production periods, and dispense that stored power into the grid during times of need. The tech in there for both, and the money is there to build them from the rate payers, the question is why aren’t the systems being designed, and built?
They should have built overhead lines.
The manipulative way to go through this would have been to offer the underground solution first then the overhead as a less disliked solution.
LOL
I think they should have bit the bullet sooner and build underground lines on mostly publicly owned land, along existing roads.
Yes it costs a little more, but even 5 years ago it would be so much cheaper. And it's a huge positive to the entire economy if cheap renewable energy can reach the south sooner.
Yes, especially if I could program appliances to respond to conditions.
One of the best ways of storing energy is by heating up water. Houses, flats, office blocks, factories -- most have tanks of water they heat up to different temperatures at different times of the day and the week, according to what will be needed and when, AND ACCORDING TO the cost. But cost is even further behind in all this than grids! Cost has to be variable and customers have to be enabled to make sophisticated energy-buying choices, preferably with the help of AI, for example, to heat their home up one or two degrees warmer than usual for an hour or two, because cold weather is approaching, or have it one or two degrees cooler for an hour or two, because cold weather has arrived - this will tend to even out demand. On a cold windy night at 3am, your tank could be turned on, instead of turning it on at 6am like everybody else; yes, it would need a bit of energy for three hours to keep it up to temperature, but the energy used at 3am is otherwise cheap and even (as per this video) possibly wasted. There is a huge inducement to nationalise power generation. Companies tend to be driven by the profit motive, and they make more money, the more energy they sell. They have no interest in climate change (as opposed to many of the people who work for them) so they can’t be trusted to help; in fact, they can pretty-well be mistrusted in everything they say, like Boris Johnson, however well they say it.
It's probably more efficient to enhance the transfer grid, but when that's not an option, storage could help use the grid we have more effectively, and also use renewables we have more at the same time.
I have been thinking about it for a while now... The next significantly big innovation will be in GRID / transmission technology (reducing wastage). That too in material, design, planning, architecture.. It will be a moment similar to "vacuum tubes to ICs" in computer technology.
localisation sub-centres functioning independently as well as connected across countries. I think it already happens but efficiency and scale will be different in future.
There's a huge opportunity for transmission: Buried HVDC inside existing transportation Right Of Way (ROW). Many existing road and rail ROW could accommodate buried HVDC. This way you only have to deal with a few entities instead of hundreds (or thousands!) of land owners and dozens (or hundreds!) of government entities. As a bonus, you can put fiber in the same trench without issue.
All grids must go HVDC.
Expensive initially but cheaper in the long run and will solve a lot of grid interconnect problems.
8:02 - One solution to the land rights problems is to build some or most of the underground power cables alongside railways. Railways already have right of way and have existed as the country urbanized.
Security and maintenance can be shared with the railway and the railway provide another way to access the lines for monitoring. If Germany had done this first, they may have already completed it instead of running into all those land right issues on the first attempt.
Ive been looking at ways of improving existing transmission lines lately. Reconductoring. Doubling the capacity seems achievable.
I know how difficult it can be when we have a row of cloudy days or when the winter days are significantly shorter. So it would be nice for homeowners to have the option of incorporate windpower as an addition to solar power. However, wind power is still difficult because it uses additional components to regulate current flow..Besides a controller, you need something that would keep the turbine from rotating out of control. Than the regular maintenance needed to keep the system in optimal order. And you need to position it were the air flow is at it strong. Besides mounting it high enough enough that it the air flow is not block by surrounding structures. Because solar panels is not the full answer.
I have solar panel. So I at the Timer for laundry and dischwascher. I also programmed the electric heating ( water and house) to work during day light.
In South Africa we have had to do this for years. You have to plan your washing and dishwashing around the available supply. We do not have the option of deciding. It is done for us
A lot of problems would be solved if people installed battery banks in their homes. It costs about $6,000 to get about 20kwh of battery capacity plus an inverter to make it AC for appliances to plug in. If these became standardized, that cost probably could come down to about $5,000 or maybe even a bit lower. This would allow people to run their homes on "direct grid" power most of the time and then switch to battery power during peak use hours. Honestly, even upping the battery bank to a $10,000 cost for 40kwh would make sense. Then the whole home could run directly from battery power and the grid could recharge the home's battery bank at hours of convenience for balancing the grid. I'm actually kind of surprised that utility companies don't offer some sort of discount rate for the ability to do exactly this: Any house which has a utility-inspected battery bank of sufficient size to only need once-per-24h recharging gets the electricity at half the price if the utility gets to determine the time of day to re-fill it. Excess power usage beyond the anticipated amount would come on demand for the consumer but with the utility having the power to ask the consumer to increase the battery bank if they want to continue to get the rate discount.
Oh, one more thing... because batteries have a limit to their useful life that is defined in terms of cycles - no way in heck am I interested in letting the grid operators take from my batteries - not my home battery bank and (if / when I get an EV) definitely not from my EV. I'd be willing to increase my battery bank capacity and consider letting the grid operators have a say as to what time of day my battery bank is charging up for the electricity that I would use over the next 24 hours. But I would not be willing to let them take it back under any circumstances - not even if they paid for "my" battery bank. And not even if they paid me a premium for the energy that they take back. I can always recharge the batteries with solar if I want to ensure that I have enough kwh stored up. But if the grid can take it from me, then I have no energy security even though I have a battery system. I'll take care of my own reliability and use the grid for additional convenience. And I will even let the grid incentivize me on the timing of my obtaining "convenience power". But I will not ever let someone else decide that what is mine is theirs and tell me that my solar panel produced electricity stored in batteries that I got for the purpose of ensuring electrical reliability now belongs to them and that I cannot have the reliability that caused me to decide to make that investment.
DW Planet.
There is no possibility that renewables can replace conventional generation.
The biggest and unsurmountable problem is intermittency, which is not overcome by batteries. Batteries can support renewables for short term frequency support but that is it.
Renewables have no inertia which is required for stability.
Renewables do not contribute to reactive power which is necessary for a stable voltage.
Renewables do not support short circuit current levels which is required for an effective protective system for the grid.
There is also the problem of undesirable harmonics due to the use of inverters to feed the grid from renewables.
All in all it is a bad idea to pursue this form of genertaion, it's expensive, unsuited and also has a short life span compared to conventional generators.